Themes of The Lord of the Rings

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Scholars and critics have identified many themes of The Lord of the Rings, a major fantasy novel by

of language
, its sound, and its relationship to peoples and places, along with moralisation from descriptions of landscape. Out of these, Tolkien stated that the central theme is death and immortality.

In addition, some modern commentators have criticised Tolkien for supposed failings in The Lord of the Rings, such as not including significant women, not being relevant to city-dwellers, not overtly showing any religion, and for racism, though others have defended Tolkien against all these charges.

Reversed quest

Further information:
Narrative patterns in The Lord of the Rings
Arthurian legend, Frodo's is to destroy an object, the One Ring.[1] Vision of the Holy Grail by William Morris
, 1890

The Tolkien critic

nuclear weapons. Shippey states that the book raises the question of whether, if the ability of humans to produce that kind of evil could somehow be destroyed, even at the cost of sacrificing something, this would be worth doing.[4]

Antitheses

Further information: Tolkien research

"No careful reader of Tolkien's fiction can fail to be aware of the polarities that give it form and fiction,"[5] writes Verlyn Flieger. Tolkien's extensive use of duality and parallelism, contrast and opposition is found throughout the novel, in pairings such as hope and despair, knowledge and enlightenment, death and immortality, fate and free will, good and evil.[5]

Death and immortality

Further information:
J. R. R. Tolkien's explorations of time travel and The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen § Love and death

Tolkien stated in his

Letters
that the core theme of The Lord of the Rings is death and the human desire to escape it:

But I should say, if asked, the tale is not really about Power and Dominion: that only sets the wheels going; it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness. Which is hardly more than to say it is a tale written by a Man![T 1]

He commented further:

It is mainly concerned with Death, and Immortality; and the 'escapes': serial longevity, and hoarding memory.[T 2]

An appendix tells

Lament of the Rohirrim.[8]

Good and evil

Further information: Character pairing in The Lord of the Rings
The ShireTolkien's moral geographyGondorMordorHaradcommons:File:Tolkien's Moral Geography of Middle-Earth.svg
Imagemap with clickable links of Tolkien's moral geography of Middle-earth, according to John Magoun[9][b]

The Lord of the Rings presents a sharp polarity between

Third Age. Mordor, the land of the Dark Lord Sauron, is opposed to Gondor and to all free peoples. These antitheses, though pronounced and prolific, are sometimes considered to be too polarizing, but they have also been argued to be at the heart of the structure of the entire story. Tolkien's technique has been seen to "confer literality on what would in the primary world be called metaphor and then to illustrate [in his secondary world] the process by which the literal becomes metaphoric".[5] The theologian Fleming Rutledge argues, on the other hand, that Tolkien aims instead to show that no definite line can be drawn between good and evil, because "'good' people can be and are capable of evil under certain circumstances".[12]

Fate and free will

Main article: Luck and fate in Middle-earth

In the chapter "

Cracks of Doom while Frodo failed to destroy it. Thus Frodo, who is overpowered by the evil Ring, is saved by what seems to be luck.[13]

The role of fate in The Lord of the Rings is contrasted sharply with the prominent role also given to personal choice and will. Frodo's voluntary choice to bear the Ring to Mordor is central to the plot of the whole story. Also important is Frodo's willing offer of the Ring to Gandalf, Aragorn, and Galadriel, and their willing refusal of it, not to mention Frodo's final inability to summon the will to destroy it. Thus, both will and fate play out throughout the story: from Sam's vision of old Gaffer Gamgee's wheelbarrow and the

Scouring of the Shire in the Mirror of Galadriel, to Arwen Evenstar's choice of mortality.[14]

Peter Kreeft notes that divine providence, in the form of the will of the

Eru Ilúvatar, can determine fate. Gandalf says, for example, that a hidden power was at work when Bilbo found the One Ring as it was attempting to return to its master.[15]

Gain and loss

Further information: Decline and fall in Middle-earth

The Tolkien scholar

Surt was even then awaiting the end of the world. Burns comments that "Here is a mythology where even the gods can die, and it leaves the reader with a vivid sense of life's cycles, with an awareness that everything comes to an end, that, though [the evil] Sauron may go, the elves will fade as well."[16]

Patrice Hannon, also in Mythlore, states that:

The Lord of the Rings is a story of loss and longing, punctuated by moments of humor and terror and heroic action but on the whole a lament for a world—albeit a fictional world—that has passed even as we seem to catch a last glimpse of it flickering and fading...[6]

In Hannon's view, Tolkien meant to show that beauty and joy fail and disappear before the passage of time and the onslaught of the powers of evil; victory is possible but only temporary.

Anduin in his funeral boat, "was not seen again in Minas Tirith, standing as he used to stand upon the White Tower in the morning".[6] Since he was dead, Hannon writes, this was hardly surprising; the observation is elegiac, not informational.[6] Even the last line of the final appendix, she notes, has this tone: "The dominion passed long ago, and [the Elves] dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return."[6]

Hannon compares this continual emphasis on the elegiac to Tolkien's praise for the Old English poem Beowulf, on which he was an expert, in Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, suggesting that he was seeking to produce something of the same effect:[6]

For it is now to us itself ancient; and yet its maker was telling of things already old and weighted with regret, and he expended his art in making keen that touch upon the heart which sorrows have that are both poignant and remote. If the funeral of Beowulf moved once like the echo of an ancient dirge, far-off and hopeless, it is to us as a memory brought over the hills, an echo of an echo.[T 3]

Environmentalism and technology

Main article: Environmentalism in The Lord of the Rings
Further information: Architecture in Middle-earth
Mines, ironworks, smoke, and spoil heaps: the Black Country, near Tolkien's childhood home, has been suggested as an influence on his depictions of industrial hell, such as Mordor.[17]

Tolkien's environmentalism and his criticism of technology has been observed by several authors. Anne Pienciak notes that technology is only employed by the forces of evil in Tolkien's works, and that he found it to be one of "the evils of the modern world: ugliness, depersonalization, and the separation of man from nature".

Middle-earth's trees to fuel his industrial machines as revealing his "evil ways".[22]
The chapter "The Scouring of the Shire" sees the industrial technology imported by Saruman's minions as an evil threat to the natural environment, replacing the traditional crafts of the Shire hobbits with noisy polluting mills full of machinery.[23]

Andrew O'Hehir wrote in

green and pleasant land". In this, in O'Hehir's view, Tolkien's sentiments are like those of Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, and William Blake.[24]

Pride and courage

Further information: Northern courage in Middle-earth

Tolkien explores the theme of "the ennoblement of the ignoble". The scholar of English literature Devin Brown links this with the Magnificat's "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree."[25] He gives as example the humble hobbits who defeat the proud and powerful Sauron.[26] Tolkien's biographers Richard J. Cox and Leslie Jones write that the heroes who destroy the Ring and scour the Shire are "the little guys, literally. The message is that anyone can make a difference"; they call this one of Tolkien's main themes.[27]

Tolkien contrasted courage through loyal service with arrogant desire for glory. While Sam follows Frodo out of loyalty and would die for him, Boromir is driven by pride in his desire for the Ring, and would risk the lives of others for his personal glory. Likewise the refusal of the ring by Sam, Faramir, and Galadriel is a courageous rejection of power and glory and personal renown.

The Monsters and the Critics that he was inspired by the apocalyptic Norse legend of Ragnarök, where the gods know that they are doomed in their final battle for the world, but go to fight anyway. Frodo and Sam share this "northern courage", knowing they have little prospect of returning home from their mission to Mount Doom.[29]

Addiction to power

Main article: Addiction to power in The Lord of the Rings
Lord Acton famously stated "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", an idea embodied in the addictive power of the One Ring.[30]

A major theme is the corrupting influence of the

Déagol, the first Ringbearer after Isildur, to obtain it.[33]

The corrupting effect of power is, according to Shippey, a modern theme, since in earlier times, power was considered to "reveal character", not alter it. Shippey quotes Lord Acton's 1887 statement:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men[30]

Critics have argued that this theme can be found as far back as

The Republic, where the character Glaucon argued that doing justice to others is never to one's benefit; he cited the mythical Ring of Gyges, which could make any man who wore it invisible and thus able to get away with theft or other crime. Glaucon claimed that such power would corrupt any man, and that therefore no man truly believes that acting justly toward others is good for him.[34]

Colin Manlove criticises Tolkien's attitude towards power as inconsistent, with exceptions to the supposedly overwhelming influence of the Ring. The Ring can be handed over relatively easily (Sam and Bilbo), and removing the Ring by force (Gollum to Frodo) does not, despite Gandalf's assertion at the beginning of the story, break Frodo's mind. The Ring also appears to have little effect on characters such as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.[35]

Shippey replies to Manlove's doubt with "one word":

addictive. He writes that this sums up Gandalf's whole argument, as in the early stages, as with Bilbo and Sam, the addiction can be shaken off easily enough, while for those who are not yet addicted, as with Aragorn and indeed others like Galadriel and Faramir, its pull is like any other temptation. What Gandalf could not do to Frodo, Shippey writes, is make him want to hand the Ring over. And for the owner of the Ring, the destructive aspect is the urge to use it, no matter how good the intentions of the owner might be at the start.[30][36][37][38]

Christianity

Main article: Christianity in Middle-earth

Applicability, not allegory

Tolkien stated in the foreword to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings that "it is neither

Genesis creation.[41] Other commentators have noted further echoes of Christian themes, including the presence of Christ figures,[15] the resurrection,[42] hope,[43] and redemptive suffering.[44]

Christ figures

The philosopher

Chronicles of Narnia series. However, Kreeft and Jean Chausse have identified reflections of the figure of Jesus Christ in three protagonists of The Lord of the Rings: Gandalf, Frodo and Aragorn. While Chausse found "facets of the personality of Jesus" in them, Kreeft wrote that "they exemplify the Old Testament threefold Messianic symbolism of prophet (Gandalf), priest (Frodo), and king (Aragorn)".[15][45][46]

Peter Kreeft's analysis of Christ-figures in The Lord of the Rings[15]
Christ
-like attribute		 Gandalf Frodo Aragorn
Sacrificial death,
resurrection
 Dies in
Moria,
reborn as Gandalf the White[c]
 Symbolically dies under Morgul-knife,
healed by Elrond[d] 		Takes
Paths of the Dead,
reappears in Gondor
Saviour All three help to save Middle-earth from Sauron
threefold Messianic symbolism Prophet Priest King
Golgotha.[48] Church of St. John Nepomucen, Brenna

Several commentators have seen Gandalf's passage through the Mines of Moria, dying to save his companions and returning as "Gandalf the White", as a symbol of the resurrection of Christ.

Undying Lands.[51]

Hope

The motif of hope is illustrated in Aragorn's successful handling of Saruman's seeing-stone or palantír. Aragorn is given the very name of "Hope" (Sindarin "Estel"), by which he is still affectionately called by his queen, Arwen, who at the hour of his death cries out "Estel, Estel!". Only Aragorn, as the heir of Isildur, can rightfully use the palantír, while Saruman and Denethor, who have both also made extensive use of palantírs, have fallen into presumption or despair. These latter traits have been identified as the two distinct sins "against the virtue of Hope".[43]

Redemptive suffering

A specifically Catholic theme is the

immortality of the soul and the importance of good intention, especially at the point of death. This is clear from Gandalf's statement: "But he [Boromir] escaped in the end.... It was not in vain that the young hobbits came with us, if only for Boromir's sake."[T 5]

Language

True language, true names

Further information: True name and Sound and language in Middle-earth

Shippey writes that The Lord of the Rings embodies Tolkien's belief that "the word authenticates the thing",

philologist, with a deep understanding of language and etymology, the origins of words. He found a resonance with the ancient myth of the "true language", "isomorphic with reality": in that language, each word names a thing and each thing has a true name, and using that name gives the speaker power over that thing.[56][57] This is seen directly in the character Tom Bombadil, who can name anything, and that name then becomes that thing's name ever after; Shippey notes that this happens with the names he gives to the hobbits' ponies.[56]

This belief, Shippey states, animated Tolkien's insistence on what he considered to be the ancient, traditional, and genuine forms of words. A modern English word like loaf, deriving directly from Old English hlāf,[58] has its plural form in 'v', "loaves", whereas a newcomer like "proof", not from Old English, rightly has its plural the new way, "proofs".[59] So, Tolkien reasoned, the proper plurals of "dwarf" and "elf" must be "dwarves" and "elves", not as the dictionary and the printers typesetting The Lord of the Rings would have them, "dwarfs" and elfs". The same went for forms like "dwarvish" and "elvish", strong and old, and avoiding any hint of dainty little "elfin" flower-fairies.[59] Tolkien insisted on the expensive reversion of all such typographical "corrections" at the galley proof stage.[59]

From language to story

Further information: Languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien § The Lord of the Rings
According to Tom Shippey, Tolkien invented parts of Middle-earth to resolve the linguistic puzzle he had accidentally created by using different European languages for those of peoples in his legendarium.[60]

Tolkien devoted enormous effort to place-names, for example making those in

The Shire such as Nobottle, Bucklebury, and Tuckborough obviously English in sound and by etymology. Shippey comments that even though many of these names do not enter the book's plot, they contribute a feeling of reality and depth, giving "Middle-earth that air of solidity and extent both in space and time which its successors [in fantasy literature] so conspicuously lack."[61] Tolkien wrote in one of his letters that his work was "largely an essay in linguistic aesthetic".[T 6]

He made use of several European languages, ancient and modern, including Old English for the language of Rohan and Old Norse for the names of dwarves (initially in The Hobbit), and modern English for the Common Speech, creating as the story developed a tricky linguistic puzzle. Among other things, Middle-earth was not modern Europe but that region long ages ago, and the Common Speech was not modern English but Westron. Therefore, the dialogue and names written in modern English were, in the fiction, translations from the Westron, and the language and placenames of Rohan was similarly supposedly translated from Rohirric into Old English; therefore, too, the dwarf-names written in Old Norse must have been translated from Khuzdul into Old Norse. Thus the linguistic geography of Middle-earth grew from Tolkien's purely philological or linguistic explorations.[60]

Language, peoples, and places

Further information:
Elvish languages (Middle-earth) and Sound and language in Middle-earth

In addition, Tolkien invested a large amount of time and energy creating languages, especially the

Rohan), which Legolas does not understand:[60]

That, I guess, is the language of the Rohirrim, for it is like to this land itself, rich and rolling in part, and else hard and stern as the mountains. But I cannot guess what it means, save that it is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men.[T 7]

Shippey states that Tolkien liked to suppose that there really was such a strong connection between things, people, and language, "especially if the person who spoke the language lived on the thing."

Sam Gamgee responds "I like that!" when the dwarf Gimli sings about the dwarf-King Durin long ago.[T 10]

Moralisation from landscape

Tolkien describes the landscapes of Middle-earth realistically, but at the same time uses descriptions of land and weather to convey feelings and a sense of something beyond the here and now. Shippey states that "both characters and readers become aware of the extent and nature of Tolkien's moralisations from landscape"

Dead Marshes:[62]

They lie in all the pools, pale faces deep deep under the dark water, I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them.[62][T 11]

Shippey writes that Tolkien frequently comes close to what the critic

literary modes. In his Anatomy of Criticism, Frye classified literature as ranging from "Ironic" at the lowest, via "Low Mimetic" (such as humorous descriptions), "High Mimetic" (accurate descriptions), and "Romantic" (idealised accounts) to "Mythic" as the highest mode; and modern literature is generally at a lower level than literature of past centuries. In Shippey's view, most of The Lord of the Rings is in Romantic mode, with occasional touches of myth, and moments of high and low mimesis to relieve the mood; and Tolkien's ability to present multiple modes at once is a major reason for his success.[63]

Debated themes

The Lord of the Rings has repeatedly been attacked, as scholars such as Ralph Wood write, on the grounds that it is a story about men for boys, with no significant women, that it omits religion from its societies,[64] and that it appears to be racist. Against this, scholars have noted that women do play significant roles,[64] that the book carries a Christian message,[64] and that Tolkien was consistently anti-racist in his private correspondence.[65][66]

Sexism

Some commentators have accused Tolkien of placing women only in background roles while the male protagonists see all the action.[64] Arwen sewing Aragorn's standard, by Anna Kulisz, 2015
Main article: Women in The Lord of the Rings

The first accusation is that there are no significant female characters;

J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia that gender roles in the Shire are not sharply separated, as males like Bilbo carry out domestic duties like cooking and cleaning.[71]

Lack of religion

Further information: The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen § Missing religion, and Christianity in Middle-earth

Wood notes that the work contains no formal religion. Hobbits have no temples or sacrifices, though Frodo can call to

Elbereth, one of the Valar, in extremis; the nearest anyone comes to religion is that the men of Gondor "pause before meals". Wood's answer here is that Tolkien intentionally left religion out of Middle-earth so that "we might see Christianity reflected in it more clearly if also indirectly".[64] He quotes Tolkien's remark in a letter that "the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism".[64][T 12]

Racism

Main article: Tolkien and race

Tolkien has frequently been accused of racism; however, during the

Second World War, he consistently expressed an anti-racist position.[65]

Sam Gamgee's more humane response to the sight of a dead Harad warrior, which she finds "harder to find fault with":[73]

He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home.[T 14]

Straubhaar quotes the English scholar Stephen Shapiro, who wrote in The Scotsman that[74]

Put simply, Tolkien's good guys are white and the bad guys are black, slant-eyed, unattractive, inarticulate, and a psychologically undeveloped horde.[75]

Straubhaar concedes that Shapiro may have had a point with "slant-eyed", but comments that this was milder than that of many of his contemporary novelists such as John Buchan, and notes that Tolkien had in fact made "appalled objection" when people had misapplied his story to current events.[74] She similarly observes that Tjeder had failed to notice Tolkien's "concerted effort" to change the Western European "paradigm" that speakers of supposedly superior languages were "ethnically superior".[76]

See also

  • J. R. R. Tolkien's influences

Notes

  1. ^ Other authors such as Michael N. Stanton and Lori M. Campbell agree that it is an "inverted quest".[2]
  2. ^ Other scholars such as Walter Scheps and Isabel G. MacCaffrey have noted Middle-earth's "spatial cum moral dimensions".[10][11]
  3. ^ Other commentators such as Jane Chance have compared this transformed reappearance to the Transfiguration of Jesus.[47]
  4. ISBN 978-1-136-78554-2
    .

References

Primary

  1. ^ Carpenter 2023, #203 to Herbert Schiro, 17 November 1957
  2. ^ Carpenter 2023, #211 to Rhona Beare, 14 October 1958
  3. ISBN 978-0048090195. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  4. ^ Tolkien 1954a "Foreword to the Second Edition"
  5. ^ Tolkien 1954, Book 3, chapter 5 "The White Rider"
  6. ^ Carpenter 2023, #165 to Houghton Mifflin, June 1955
  7. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 3, ch. 6 "The King of the Golden Hall"
  8. ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 1, ch. 3 "Three is Company"
  9. ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond·"
  10. ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 4 "A Journey in the Dark"
  11. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 2 "The Passage of the Marshes"
  12. ^ Carpenter 2023, letter #142 to Robert Murray S.J., 2 December 1953
  13. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 3 "The Black Gate is Closed"
  14. ^ Tolkien 1954, book 4, ch. 4 "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"

Secondary

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0875483030
    .
  2. ISBN 978-0-7864-5655-0
    . the mission is to destroy rather than to find something, what Stanton calls an 'inverted quest' in which 'Evil struggles to gain power; Good to relinquish it'
  3. ISBN 978-0875483030
    .
  4. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 369–370.
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-0-87338-744-6
    .
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Hannon, Patrice (2004). "The Lord of the Rings as Elegy". Mythlore. 24 (2): 36–42.
  7. S2CID 170378314
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  8. Mallorn
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  12. ISBN 978-0-8028-2497-4
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  13. ^ Solopova 2009, p. 49.
  14. ISBN 978-0-618-42253-1
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  15. ^ a b c d Kreeft, Peter J. (November 2005). "The Presence of Christ in The Lord of the Rings". Ignatius Insight. Archived from the original on 24 November 2005. Retrieved 24 October 2011.
  16. ^
    JSTOR 26811938
    .
  17. ^ Jeffries, Stuart (19 September 2014). "Mordor, he wrote: how the Black Country inspired Tolkien's badlands". The Guardian.
  18. ISBN 0-8120-3523-2
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  19. ^ Beowulf, lines 405b–406
  20. ^ Shippey 2002, pp. 169–171.
  21. ISBN 978-0875483030
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  22. ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0
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  23. ISBN 3-8260-2619-5
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  24. Salon
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  25. Luke 1:52, King James Version
  26. ISBN 978-1426749490
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  27. ISBN 978-0-313-32340-9
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  28. ^ Solopova 2009, p. 42.
  29. ^ Solopova 2009, p. 28.
  30. ^ a b c Shippey 2002, pp. 115–119.
  31. ISBN 978-0875483030
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  32. ^ Shippey 2002, pp. 112–160.
  33. ISBN 9780826484604
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  34. ^ Plato; Jowett, Benjamin (2009) [360 B.C.]. The Republic. The Internet Classics Archive.
  35. OCLC 8661848
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  36. ISBN 9781602667686
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  37. ^ Sommer, Mark (7 July 2004). "Addicted to the Ring". Hollywoodjesus.com – Pop Culture From A Spiritual Point of View. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
  38. ISBN 9781109246766
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  39. ^ Shippey 2005, p. 49.
  40. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 191–197.
  41. ^ a b Shippey 2005, p. 227.
  42. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1
    .
  43. ^
    ISBN 0-7425-3184-8
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  44. ^ a b c Olar, Jared L. (July 2002). "The Gospel According to J.R.R. Tolkien". Grace and Knowledge. No. 12.
  45. ISBN 978-1-61147-065-9
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  46. ^ Schultz, Forrest W. (1 December 2002). "Christian Typologies in The Lord of the Rings". Chalcedon. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  47. ^ Nitzsche 1980, p. 42.
  48. ^
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  49. doi:10.3138/jrpc.13.1.003
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  51. ^ a b Bedell, Haley (2015). "Frodo Baggins: The Modern Parallel to Christ in Literature" (PDF). Humanities Capstone Projects (Paper 24). Pacific University.
  52. ISBN 978-0786463886
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  53. ^ Dalfonzo, Gina (2007). "Humble Heroism: Frodo Baggins as Christian Hero in The Lord of the Rings". In Pursuit of Truth.
  54. ^ Shippey 2005, p. 63.
  55. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 55–56.
  56. ^ a b Shippey 2005, pp. 115, 121.
  57. ISBN 978-0-8131-2301-1
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  58. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (2002) [1894]. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (4th ed.). University of Toronto Press. p. 185.
  59. ^ a b c Shippey 2005, pp. 63–66.
  60. ^ a b c d e Shippey 2005, pp. 129–133.
  61. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 117–118.
  62. ^ a b c Shippey 2005, pp. 245–246.
  63. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 237–249.
  64. ^
    ISBN 978-0-664-23466-9
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  65. ^
    S2CID 162647975
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  66. ^ Straubhaar 2004, pp. 112–115.
  67. OCLC 24122
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  68. ^ Butler, Robert W.; Eberhart, John Mark (1 January 2002). "In Tolkien, it's a man's world, and with good reason". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  69. ISBN 978-0313312458
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  70. ^ Basso, Ann McCauley (2008). "Fair Lady Goldberry, Daughter of the River". Mythlore. 27 (1). article 12.
  71. ISBN 978-1-1358-8033-0
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  72. ^ Straubhaar 2004, p. 112.
  73. ^ a b c Straubhaar 2004, p. 113.
  74. ^ a b Straubhaar 2004, p. 114.
  75. ^ Shapiro, Stephen (14 December 2002). "Lord of the Rings labelled racist". The Scotsman.
  76. ^ Straubhaar 2004, p. 115.

Sources

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